Conventional residential and commercial oven appliances generally include a cabinet that defines a cooking chamber for receipt of food items for cooking. Multiple heating elements are positioned within the cooking chamber to provide heat to food items located therein. The heating elements can include, for example, radiant heating elements, such as a bake heating assembly positioned at a bottom of the cooking chamber and/or a separate broiler heating assembly positioned at a top of the cooking chamber.
Some conventional appliances include a convection heating assembly, which may include a convection heating element and fan or other mechanism for creating a flow of heated air within the cooking chamber. During use, the burners or electric heating elements may be separately activated to direct or radiate heat to, for instance, a food item being cooked. For instance, during broiling operations, the heating elements of the broiler heating assembly may be activated to heat a predefined radiant surface to an elevated temperature so that heat may be radiated above a food item. During baking operations, the heating elements of the baking heating assembly may be activated to provide heat directly below a food item within the cooking chamber. Generally, the broiler heating assembly is deactivated during baking operations and the baking heating assembly is deactivated during broil operations.
Oftentimes, these conventional appliances are unable to quickly transition from baking to broiling, and vice versa. Additional time must be allowed to pass in order to one heating assembly to reach a suitable cooking temperature and for the other heating assembly to drop to a suitable non-cooking temperature. For example, in the case of radiant heating elements, significant amount of pre-heating time before a suitable temperature is reached. This additional pre-heating time may frustrate a user and/or hinder certain cooking operations.
Moreover, the heating elements of conventional appliances may occupy a set amount of space within the cooking chamber. For instance, one or more elements may extend downward into the defined cooking chamber. One or more other elements may extend upward into the defined cooking chamber. These configurations may thereby reduce the usable volume of the cooking chamber, limiting the size of items that may be positioned or cooked therein.
Accordingly, oven appliances having an improved convection assembly would be desirable. Specifically, oven appliances having a convection assembly that could quickly transition between multiple cooking operations. Additionally, it may be desirable for broiler assemblies to quickly reach an instructed temperature. It may be further desirable for broiler assemblies to reduce the amount of cooking chamber volume otherwise dedicated to heating elements.